


Mortibus Inmortales

by Allofmynerd (Timey_Whimey_Avenging_Detectives)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Immortal Fake AH Crew
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-05 11:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5374010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timey_Whimey_Avenging_Detectives/pseuds/Allofmynerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Anarchy Hunters are one of the most ruthless crews in Los Santos until someone cuts them down to size and the streets run red with their vengeance. Meanwhile they learn to pick themselves back up.</p><p>Immortal AH Crew Beginnings told mostly from the perspective of their very frustrated Doctor Jordyn ‘stop ignoring my medical advice damn you’ Watts or 3rd person POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One; Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> There is both the bearded version of Jack and Trans!Jack in this fic because I like the merits of both.  
> They're twins. If you have any suggestions about how I portray them I'm all ears because I'm just rolling with my vaguely thought out three am crazy at this point. 
> 
> This will be presented in parts but not posted separately. 
> 
> I have no beta so bear with me

> **Mortibus Inmortales**
> 
> **Deaths Immortals**
> 
> **Part 1; Lies Older Than Reckoning**
> 
> ******Prologue**

* * *

 

 

Jordyn Watts was a Doctor, a Surgeon of the highest education. She's spent two years working in the ER of the biggest hospital in the most dangerous city in the country. She knew Death, fought constantly against him. A pebble against the raging tide, useless against the waves. Every life was a war the enemy cold and final beneath her hands and every victory was ecstasy, power beyond belief.

She thought she knew death, then she had been taken.

Death became a companion, a sweet whisper in the dark, a promise. Rest. Rest, he said. And she had never been so tempted but something in her stubbornly refused to submit. Refused even to relinquish those who caused her pain. A stubborn spark within kindled to flame by made up words spoken with the kind of arrogant defiance only the young possessed in the face of their own demise.

"They'll come for me." He told her his accent sharp and slurring the words even as he bled, red and real. Bright, sharp against the wide white grin that was mad, it made his eyes shine, brilliant and alive.

When they came she went willingly, tending their hurts and when Death came again she fought him with every ounce of her own soul. More than willing to relinquish herself in his place. Victory was hard won, but to see that sly smile beneath a day's stubble. His quiet calm, to hear his voice warm and sharp, after three holes in his chest, it filled her with pride.

A year of close calls later but none closer than the last made her proud, and pride always comes before the fall.

It had happened quickly and quiet enough that the others couldn't see, didn't hear his last breath cut short.

The world stopped when The Vagabond fell.

The bullet had caught him between the eyes and really it was the crack of his mask that had given it away. The way he fell, limp, like he was boneless told Jordyn everything her hands raced to confirm. The back of his head was gone, it was a clinical note made without the slightest pause in her movements as she rolled him over. Rage stirred in her, a living thing, because he had been smiling beneath the mask when the stray hunk of lead ended his lethal joy.

She had thought she knew Death but he had stolen him from her without even the chance of a fight.

The scream that tore itself free of her breast was inhuman and she had never felt more defeated. Not during her capture, not during the loss of her world before.

" _Jo?!_ " The call brought her into focus sharply, Gavin's voice pulling her away from Death's call once again.

She was panting when she had breath to answer the Brit, to shatter them, and she had been trained for this, the soft words, the sorry. The loss. And she couldn't say it, her voice colder than she had ever heard it. Cold with un-softened truth. " _Ryan is dead_."

The denial, their denial came in a wave and it broke over her silence with the force of all they were, explosive and grand and broken.

The words of the one who had come closest to this, broke again. " _Don't just fucking sit there! Bring him back! You bring him back!_ "

She wanted to scream again but her voice remained level in the wake of cursing and crying. " _I can't,_ " the blood coating her hands seemed cold as she stared at it, numbing, _"the back of his head is gone Ray. I can't-_ " she sucked in a breath as he broke in her ear. " _Jacque I need evac, I am not leaving him here._ "

She was rage and fire and fury as she tore through their grief, too fresh to truly dim but fresh enough to kindle into flame.

Los Santos burned with it.

Words she would never recall spurring them into explosive action across their world. Reigning death and destruction with mad rage. Words she would never recall spurring them into explosive action across their world. Reigning death and destruction with mad rage. But she was not with them, she had work yet to do because their Mad King would burn to be seen as he was, broken. Empty.

Jacque got only one look before they loaded him back to base and she turned ashen with it.

All Jordyn could see was red.

Rage and blood and only work could state it.

She did a proper autopsy by route, noting previous injuries, a lifetime of violence and scars. The story of the Vagabond, the Mad King and deeper older marks, the man beneath the mask for whom she could not grieve.

Not yet.

Not until her work was done.

She cleaned him of the last violence that touched him, leaving only the smile and paint he would have treasured upon his face. In life he had been prepared, an extra mask was not hard to find. The clothes he wore were cleaned. Jacque took great care and together they redressed him settling his limbs into something like sleep.

 

A lie that burned at her but they would find it easier.

They found her hours or days later clutching her black book, the silent record of her war against Death.

With one more loss too heavy to bare.

 

 


	2. Part One; Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mad King is Dead  
> Long Live The Mad King.

> **Lies Older Than Reckoning**
> 
> **Chapter 1**
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

**  
**Ryan had left them very specific instructions regarding his… demise. Most of which had been written before his identity had been forcibly revealed in months previous. The rest didn’t make a lick of sense, Geoff was stone sober, in a way he hadn’t been in years as he looked over the papers.

“Jesus.” Geoff looked up at Jo, repressing a flinch, she’d gone cold, almost inhuman after Ryan had… fallen, something in him couldn’t accept the finality of the term  _death_  and he wasn’t keen at examining it.

Jordyn though looked like she had gone with him and was worse off for it. Her eyes sunken, skin ashen, greyish in a way that looked corpse like. When she moved it was disjointed, clumsy, but her mind was razor sharp, cutting into them whenever they despaired too deeply.

“Have you read this?” He asked hollow sounding even to his own ears.

“Yes Geoffery that would be why his heart is preserved sitting in a jar on my desk.” Her tone was flat and without amusement.

He flinched hard at the announcement.

“I-I couldn’t-” a crack appeared in the calm facade she had fallen back on.

He understood it, one of Ryan’s many requests had been dismemberment. “I understand that.” His grimace shifted to something sickly, “Gav and Michael are preparing the bonfire.”

Ryan had asked them to cut off his head, rip out his heart and burn him to bones. His heart was to be buried at a crossroads he’d named just south of the city and his charred skull chucked into the sea. The remainder they could lay to rest however they pleased. All this was to have been done four hours after he died.

It was oddly specific even for Ryan.

It had been four days now and they’d recovered enough to finally do it. Geoff hated himself for fucking up this one last thing, last respects, last wishes were supposed to be sacred but he’d learned in this world nothing was.

Jo was rising, he noticed the tremor in her frame but said nothing. “I’ll finish the last of the perpetrations.”

“You need to eat something.” Geoff spoke, and he tried to put authority he didn’t feel into the words.

Jo snorted, the first real honest sound he’d heard from her in four days as she paused on the threshold. “You’re one to talk.”

With that she was gone.

Geoff’s eyes turned back to the pages before him, the last requests of a madman, a friend and he cried. Alone. The rest of them couldn't see this, not now when the Crew was so vulnerable. So he was alone. silent and broken in the weight of his grief.

 

* * *

 

They had moved Ryan into a refrigerated truck rolled up where their stolen ambulance would normally park because it was all they had. 

All that they could do to preserve him.

Jordyn carried the jar with his heart there in a black bag, it wasn’t anything the rest of the crew needed to see.

Matt and Jeremy stood in honor guard at the back of the truck. Their faces blank and controlled, backs straight, standing tall, they had been down this road with her before.

“I’ll take it from here.” She told them, precise and controlled in a way that didn’t match the howling rage lodged in her chest. “Go get some rest, the both of you.”

They moved away without looking at her, each extending a hand to grip her shoulder in silent comfort as they passed.

They would also grieve later, when the work was done.

Jordyn climbed into the truck, Ryan rested on a gurney, still and silent and cold. She placed his heart, still in the bag, beside him and turned away. Something, a small sound in the silence made her turn to face him again. Her heart raced as she listened, half convincing herself it was just her imagination.

A breath, more like a small sigh echoed through the cool interior of the truck.

Jordyn Watts starred as Ryan’s chest watching with horrified fascination as it expanded minutely before the small sigh echoed again.

Rigor mortis had come and gone and with it all chances of movement, post mortem breathing had never in recorded history occurred more than twelve hours after death. Jo’s heart hammered painfully as she approached extending a shaking hand over the slight opening between the teeth of the skull mask.

A warm puff of air tickled her palm on the fading edge of the next little sigh.

Jordyn felt her eyes go very large her own breath stuttering to a stop and she lunged forward pressing her ear against his chest. Listening for breath indrawn and getting a thready hesitant thump-thump instead.

Wheeling backwards she shoved her fist into her mouth to hold back a scream. “It’s not- it can’t-” her jerking reaction had knocked the black bag over and the jar with Ryan’s heart rolled beneath the gurney.

The red organ bright in the dark of the van.

“I’m going crazy.” But the soft sigh brought her head up again, she found herself moving to the medical bag strapped to the gurney with slow dream like motions.

The stethoscope settled with a familiar weight in her ears and she took a shaking step forwards pressing it against his chest.

Thump

 

 

Thump-thump

 

 

 

 

Thump-thump

Thump

Jo pulled away with a gasp and fumbling, “I’m losing my mind.” Shaking she retreated out of the van her eyes landing on a passing familiar figure.

Ray caught sight of her with a frown, “you okay Doc?” It was a stupid question, and he winced for asking it. None of them were okay.

Jo reached out and grabbed at him like he was an anchor her breath coming in sharp shocked gasps.

“Jo?” Ray moved in closer his own hands supporting hers a worried look crossing his face because this could be the moment she finally broke and he wasn’t equipped for it. Like at all, “Jordyn?”

“I think I’m losing my mind.” She seemed to snap back seeing him for the first time, “but on the off chance that I’m not completely bat shit. Come. Here.”

The shaking doctor grabbed the sniper by the collar and dragged him into the truck shoving the stethoscope into his ears and shoving him towards Ryan’s corpse. “What the fuck Jo?!”

Because this he wasn’t ready for, he was the only one of them who hadn’t seen him like this, still and lifeless.

She slapped a hand over his mouth, “shut up and listen. I need you to tell me if I’m crazy.” Her eyes were wide and manic but there was something steely in them.

So Ray listened and choked on his own breath within seconds.

Thump-thump

 

 

Thump

 

 

Thump-thump

 

Thump-thump

The rasp of a tiny sighing breath caught him off guard and he was crying. “You said he was dead.” It was hardly more than a whisper as he whipped around to face her. “You. Said. He. Was. Dead.”

Jordyn was shaking, not the little tired shakes that had consumed her movement since yesterday from exhaustion but full body shudders of fear. Her hands clasped over her mouth, fingers digging into cheeks, eyes wide enough that the whites were exposed all around.

“You said his head-” Ray cut himself off and turned back to Ryan carefully removing the mask and lifting the man’s head.

Jordyn sucked in a enormous horrified breath before her knees buckled. Ray tried to catch her mostly succeeding, his eyes still locked on the back of Ryan’s head, bare skull remained in patches but skin was growing over even as they watched.

“He’s regenerating.” Ray heard himself say. “He’s healing - how?”

“It’s not possible-” Jo was shaking, her head light from the breaths she had held. “It’s not-” she was hyperventilating again, her vision tunneling.

“Jo,” Ray grabbed her by the shoulders firm but gentle, “Jo stop. Breathe, what does this even mean???”

It took coaxing but the panic attack subsided, and Jo lurched to her feet. “We can save him.” She looked down at Ray tears streaking down her cheeks. “We can _save him_.” She launched herself to the back of the truck and bellowed, “CALEB! RAMSEY! GET THE FUCK IN HERE!”

Her voice echoed through the warehouse shrill and sharp enough that she saw Geoff’s office door slam open from across the base. He oriented on the truck at once and booked it down his stairs.

Caleb was significantly closer and came shooting forward, “What-?”

Jo grabbed him by the front of the shirt and hauled him in, Ray was standing and just pointed at the back of Ryan’s head.

Caleb had seen it, before he’d been there when she brought the body in, when she had officially called it. “That’s” Ray shoved the stethoscope into his ears and pushed him forward.

Jo could see the moment when the nurse caught the heartbeat, his back stiffening in surprise. He turned slowly to face her eyes completely wide and white as a ghost. “That is not possible.”

“Prep medical.” Jo snapped at him and the man was off flying like a shot nearly bowling Ramsey down as he ran.

Others had gathered and Jo didn’t care her eyes were on their Boss as she spoke. “He’s alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey at least I'm not the kind of asshole that would have let you grieve for chapters on end.


	3. Part One; Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes as they watch over Ryan's slow healing and his eventual return.

**Mortibus Inmortales**

**Deaths Immortals**

**Part 1; Lies Older Than Reckoning**

**Chapter Two**

* * *

 

They had transferred Ryan to the room that severed at the crew's medical ward just off the surgery. Jo and Caleb hadn't stopped moving in the hour he had been in place hooking him up to every machine they had bought, borrowed or stolen. 

The pair had Jack running every test they could imagine while the beep of the heart rate monitor grew steadier around them. 

When Ryan took his first real full shuddering breath his chest rising with it everyone in the room stopped and stared.  He took a second and a third and finally Geoff spoke up. 

"How is this possible?"

"It's not." Jo took a deep breath and pointed at the jar on his bedside table that held a human heart. "Jack's running DNA now but I cut that out of him myself Geoff and-" she grabbed an X-Ray flipping it onto the back lit panel, "we took this an hour ago, that is his heart." 

"He always have a second one or something?" Geoff asked because he could hear Ryan's heart beat. 

"Not when I was in there last." Jordyn couldn't force her hands to stop shaking she wouldn't look away from the Jar, "either that isn't really his heart and someone put it the real one back but Geoff that's- that's delicate work I've only done a successful transplant like that once. Even so I spent a few solid  _hours_ with him after I removed the heart with his chest wide open so there is no way he would have survived."

"What about his head?" Ray was the only other Core crew in the room "you said - the back-"

Caleb took over because Jo looked like she was about to fall over, "The bullet entered here," he tapped the center of his forehead, "and it ricocheted inside his skull scrambling his brain and exploded out the back. I saw the exit wound Geoff- he shouldn't be." He shook his head. 

"He shouldn't be alive," Jo let her gaze bounce between them, "but since we've started monitoring him… heart, respiratory and brain functions have been steadily rising."

"He regrew his temporal lobe in half an hour." Caleb's voice was entirely numb and his grip on the patient's chart was like a lifeline. "People don't  _ do that _ ."

"What are you saying?" Geoff's voice was sharp, sharper and louder than he had intended. 

Caleb flinched away and Jo stepped between him, "what he's saying is we have no medical precedence for what's happening here  _ at all _ . None. Nothing.  All of science tells us in human beings this? This is impossible." 

There was a long heavy silence and Ray broke it, "will he wake up?"

"I don't know," Jo watched a machine print a read out handing the paper to Caleb as it finished. "Normally the steady increase of vitals in a case of trauma near this scale would be a good thing. But head injuries make everything tricky in the best of circumstances. He could wake up, and he might be like he was before or he could have no memory at all. Or he might not ever wake up but if he does he might never be our Ryan again. You have to prepare yourselves for that, we have no way of knowing." 

"Man," Ray blew out a breath, "this is some grade a x files doctor who bullshit, am I right?" 

"Too right," Caleb was striding from the room, "I'm going to check in with Jack." 

Geoff scrubbed a hand over his face and headed for the door gesturing for Ray to follow, "Keep us posted, we've got some work to do."

Ray followed Geoff his trigger finger itching at his side, "finally." 

Jo watched them go and looked back to Ryan's form counting the space between breaths, watching the way the oxygen mask fogged with each one. 

Carefully, gently she took his hand it was warm in hers and that alone sent shivers down her spine as she had been handling his cold corpse the day before, "I-I don't understand this but you told me once the Vagabond was a master of the impossible." She took a shaking breath, "so do the impossible,  _ wake up _ . Please just don't-" she bowed her head taking deep steady breaths. 

She couldn't break. 

Not yet there was too much still to do. 

\---

Ryan Haywood woke up in a hospital bed, he'd been there so many times before it was hardly disorienting. It took him a moment, several breaths, to take stock of himself.  He ached everywhere, a solid and uniform kind of ache deeper only in his stomach due to hunger. When he opened his eyes the light was bright and painful, he took a minute to blink letting his eyes adjust to the fluorescence. 

When he turned his head he found Jo staring at the heart rate monitor profile to him, her eyes tracing the steady blip across the screen. Her shoulders pulled tight, tension visible in her every breath and the white knuckle grip on a clipboard clutched to her chest. 

On the nightstand between them there was a jar with a human heart suspended preserved in liquid. 

In his chest his own heart jumped a fraction, the heart rate monitor betrayed his reaction but Jo didn't turn. 

"It's yours, the heart, if that's what you're wondering." Her voice was empty, vacant, "that's the DNA report beside it. One hundred percent indisputable fact." 

He let out a rough chuckle, "I guess you didn't exactly stick to the letter of my will then." 

"So you knew." Jo was shaking her voice hard, clinical, "I had wondered, your instructions were so specific but in the field you always shielded us. Went in first during raids, took the most dangerous solo missions. I assumed you liked the thrill, but you were protecting us. All this time."  She finally faced him then her eyes blazing, " _ you knew _ ."

"Yes." And somehow it was a relief to have somebody know, finally about the curse that he bore.

Like a burden had been lifted. 

When he looked back at the Doctor he was surprised to find her crying silently beside him. Her hand clasped over her mouth to stifle her sobs, "You - utter - asshole." 

Ryan scrambled to sit up ignoring the head rush with gritted teeth, "fuck - don't-" 

She cut him off with a sharp shake of her head controlling herself with a deep breath and visible effort. "You don't get to-" she shook her head again, "I saw you die, I watched you fall and  _ I carved out your heart _ . You don't just get to apologize for that." She was still crying as she slashed her arm angrily through the air before turning on her heel and stalking through the room. 

The door slammed in her wake and Ryan took a shaking breath. 

"Fuck." 

The door opened almost as soon as it had closed and Ray was standing there casually, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie, shoulders hunched. 

"So you're you then? Jo said you might not be- head wound and all." He wasn't looking at Ryan either and he had a feeling that was going to be dealing with that a lot. 

Ryan reached up to touch the back of his skull and found a shorter patch of hair around the back of his head and winced with remembered pain. 

Ray crossed the room quickly and grabbed his wrist, "fuck don't touch it if it hurts idiot. I'll get the Doc she'll-"

"No Ray- it's fine." He turned Ray's grip against the younger man and pulled him down to sit beside him. "I'm fine, I just remember getting hit is all."

Ray flinched a little in sympathy, "you didn't just get hit Rye, you  _ died _ ." His throat closed around the word in raw panic, and he couldn't continue. 

Geoff came in before Ryan could answer, long measured strides bristling and furious. He took a look at them leaning shoulder to shoulder and tension leaked away. 

He approached and grabbed Ryan by the shoulders examining him. "I need a check in." His voice was hard with authority, the tone they heard when a heist went to shit and he needed to pull them together to get them out alive. He didn't let go of Ryan, needing to ground himself in the other man's presence and Ryan was absurdly grateful for it.

At this point responding was routine, "I ache deep enough it's in my bones, and I'm hungry but I won't be able to keep anything more than broth down for a few days." Geoff's hands seemed to spasm a little on his shoulders, digging in. "But I'll live Boss, I always do." The admission was quiet and it seemed to surprise even Ryan who rushed on,"Before you call me an asshole, would you have believed me if I told you?"

Geoff snorted half a laugh, "you have a point." He surged forward the motion abrupt for a brief hard hug, "you're still an asshole."  That startled a laugh out of Ryan, low and raspy as they parted relief plain on Geoff's features.  The remainder of the core crew was hovering at the door, the loudest lad the only conspicuous absence. 

Geoff of course noticed it immediately, "Where's Gav?"

"Taking Jo home, she practically passed out." Michael said with a roll of his shoulders, "finally burned out I guess." 

A crease appeared in Geoff's brow, and something cold pooled in Ryan's gut. "How long have I been here?"

"Five weeks." Michael glared hard at him, missing the shiver of pure panic that bolted down Ryan's spine, "don't do that again." 

Jack was the one who caught Ryan's sudden panic, "You alright?"

Ryan ducked his head staring at his hands, "It's never taken that long to come back before." 

"Dude," Ray bumped his shoulder encouragingly, "you had to regrow your brain. Most people can't do that, lucky you came back at all." 

Ryan nodded sighing as the others made their way over, smiling, relieved. The Jack's both embraced him tightly, Jacque kissed his forehead as she scolded him. "Don't be so reckless." 

Michael and Lindsay were next, Lindsay hugged him crying, smiling. Michael simply clapped him on the shoulder and asked the question he'd been dreading. "So is this like a Wolverine thing or?" 

He tried to make light of it, holding out a fist and clenching it, "I don't seem to have adamantium claws." 

"Come on Ryan," Ray rolled his eyes, "Seriously man like do you have any limits at all? I mean you took a head shot and lived. That's -" he made a wowed gesture. 

"Knock it off boys, he doesn't have to share." This came from Jacque, the woman stood by the door arms crossed and eyes focused on Ryan. 

Geoff nodded in agreement, "let's get him something to eat before you start on the twenty questions there boys." His gaze flicked to Ryan, "you don't have to share anything you're not comfortable with got it."

"You’re kidding right?" Ryan laughed hollowly, he eyed them warily, "You know most people would be running for the hills or trying to dissect me right about now." 

"Don't know if you noticed," Jack twirled a knife in his hand tossing it idly at Michael who snatched it out of the air on reflex before sending it soaring at Geoff. 

Their boss caught it between two fingers inches from his face. "We're not most people."  That rolled a laugh out of the assembled, dark and sharp in turns. Geoff as usual lead them out, the Jack's bracketing Ryan on either side with Lindsay and the Lad's bringing up the rear.  Their leader flipped open his phone, "Hey Gavvers prep the penthouse, we're coming to you."

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay Ryan's Back!


	4. Part One; Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan rants and Gavin has some issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!!!  
> Slight mentions of suicidal tendencies and multiple previous deaths.   
> It's nothing too severe but someone gets a little emotional.

**Mortibus Inmortales**

**Deaths Immortals**

**Part 1; Lies Older Than Reckoning**

**Chapter Three**

* * *

 

It's hours later, well into the early morning when Jordyn joins the crew at the penthouse for the celebration. She hasn't slept much but it's enough to get by, eating was a chore but she'd choked something down.

Most of them, by that time, are completely sloshed, Ryan and Ray of course are ever sober situated in the middle of the chaos. Ray's legs draped over Ryan's pinning him in place. The Jack's are trying to drink Geoff under the table with a drinking game of sorts. Howling and hollering, egged on by the Jones's who are curled into each other on the opposite couch.

Gavin is hovering at the fringes nursing a beer in the kitchen watching but not a part and she joins him there. For some reason Gav had avoided Ryan during the weeks he lay healing, oh he had volunteered to stand guard on the sleeping man most often but he never entered the room once. He'd had a haunted look since the beginning, since she'd called it, he'd hidden it beneath smiles and an almost psychotic cheer until they had discovered Ryan's healing. The false cheer had evaporated into a silent withdrawal.

Nobody knew what to make of it, "have you talked to him yet?" She hardly raised her voice above a whisper.

"Nope." He took a swig of beer emptying it, the bottle went into the trash with a soft clang and he turned on his heel exiting the apartment.

"Gavin," He didn't pause and when Jo turned back to the room she found Ray watching worriedly from the couch.

The sniper rose crossing the room, he offered his fist to Jo and she bumped her's against his, "I got this."

"Thanks Ray," Jo further entered the room and plucked the bottle of whiskey Geoff was nursing from his hands ignoring his protests. "I'm going to have to pump your stomach at this rate." She passed him a bottle of water, "drink it or wear it Ramsey."

He took it grudgingly, "who are you my mother?"

"Fuck off," but Jo was smiling as she repeated the process with the Jack and Jacque who were far more gracious about the whole thing. Michael had already moved from water to coffee his hand idly stroking through Lindsay's hair where she lay curled against him. Jo finally turned to Ryan and glared hard at him, "we are going to have a long talk about withholding pertinent medical information from your acting physician." She pulled out an envelope from her jacket tossing it to him, "but only after you rethink this."

He opened the envelope conscious of the others watching, "ah." Leaning forward he placed his Last Will and Testament on the table. "I had a feeling you would figure it out."

"That your will was the equivalent of a 'do not resuscitate' for someone with your... abilities." Jo's glare got steely, "It was too weirdly specific to be anything else."

"What is she talking about?" Michael was truly sober now, his attention sharp and focused.

"The instructions I left were intended to overwhelm my abilities," Ryan seemed to age before them, weary and exhausted with this life. "I wanted to stay dead."

"Jezus Ryan." Jack scrubbed at his face while his twin headed for the coffee pot.

"You asked me to carve out your heart and chop your corpse into pieces, burn you and bury the rest scattered across the city!" Jordyn closed her eyes her voice ringing in the now silent apartment and when she continued. "I watched you die and you asked me to cut up your corpse without even the decency of giving me a little warning. It was too much at once, did you ever consider that?"

Ryan gave an empty laugh but his expression was pained as he opened his mouth and closed it shaking his head straightening to stare at her. "I am old Doctor, I have seen civilizations rise and fall, I have lived and died countless wars. Witnessed the unending tide of man's ambitions in my wanderings." He stood and began pacing, restless, because they were staring, hardly daring to breathe with the force of his words, "I have forgotten more of history than what is written in any language upon this earth! Everyone I have ever known has withered into dust before my cursed eyes." He stopped and glared eyes alight with the madness they knew but never quite understood until now.

Ryan leaned against the couch he had maneuvered between them his hands curling to fists in the material. Forcing himself back under control, voice quiet, "I never meant to hurt you, but I would not have the first people who have welcomed my madness in centuries become just another empty memory."

\---

"What do you think it feels like?" Ray blew a puff of smoke out away from Gavin, they sat balanced on the edge of the rooftop which was marginally better than the way Ray had found him up there balanced with the wind at his back looking ready to fall.

"Whot?"

"Dying," Ray clarified, "what do you think it feels like?"

Gavin stiffened beside him whipcord tight in an instant and Ray couldn't help but turn to stare only to find the lad meeting his gaze. Solidly, unflinching and with something like fear hidden beneath the confidence in his searching eyes.

Gavin spoke after a long moment, "It feels like looking down at a long fall, the moment between failed chute and reserve chute, getting caught in a hurricane or feeling the pull of a tornado against your skin." There was no humor, none of the lightness and laughter the man was known for in his voice only unflinching certainty. "That little flutter in the pit of your stomach when you take a turn on two wheels with sirens at your back. That moment it takes beneath the waves before you fight your way back to the surface." Ray stared because the last five weeks combined with the almost casual certainty that Gavin barreled on with shook him. "Those heart beats between flying and falling. The moment of stillness before you take the shot from 'alf a mile away."

Ray sucked in a breath suspicion pooling in his gut, "Gav-"

The Brit looked away eyes skyward, voice shaken, "And it hurts every time."

Ray could hear his heart pounding in his ears and he was afraid to speak, "Man you sound like you've done it before." He tried to make it a joke he really really did.

"I have X-Ray," there were tears streaming down his face but he was smiling in earnest, "too many times to count and all these years I thought I was the only one. I thought I was alone."

"You have got to be shitting me." His voice sounded numb even to his own ears.

Gavin shot a glance at him and then lowered his eyes to the ground far below them leaning forward at bit, "I've survived worse."

Ray grabbed at him, fingers digging, scrambling with an iron grip, "don't - Gav don't." He pulled them back from the edge and Gavin was easily lead, "don't even joke."

"Easy luv, calm down." Gavin tried for a placating hug.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Ray shoved him away angry and confused and more than scared, horrified, "Are you fucking- no-" he released his hold on Gavin with one hand and grabbed for his phone.

"Ray-"

"Shut the fuck up. Just-" he dialed without looking.

\---

Michael's phone broke the silence in the wake of Ryan's revelation. Cursing he scrambled for it.

"The fuck," he answered it with a swipe, "Ray?"

_ "Get up here Gavin has lost his mind."  _ Ray snapped, the fear in his voice bottomed out Michael's stomach making him go pale.

"What else is new?" Michael joked but he was looking straight at Geoff, and their boss knew something was wrong.

_ "He tried to jump off the damn roof Micheal! Get the fuck up here." _

Michael was running before he even registered that he had moved and the others were shouting after him but all he could think, all he could see was Gavin falling. He shouted something back at them but he wasn't paying attention to what it said, it must have satisfied them because nobody followed. The roof access wasn't far and Michael's place was a penthouse so it took half a minute before Michael was bursting onto the roof.

"You don't just joke about something like that!" Ray was all but screaming at Gavin who stood silent and still.

That set off more alarm bells than Michael knew he possessed. Ever since he met Gavin the gangly Brit never seemed able to be still. Always fidgeting, bouncing, moving. Whining his way through arguments and back onto their good sides by virtue of being utterly pathetic. Needy and clingy all the time. 

This Gavin was still and silent unblinking in the face of Ray's anger. There eyes met and the wildness there that so strongly resembled Ryan moments ago had Michael step back. "What is going on?" His voice was careful cautious because Gavin had been so out of sorts lately, the whole roof felt balanced on a hair trigger. "Ray said-" his throat closed over the words.

Gavin shrugged his voice matter of fact, "had worse deaths than street pizza boi." He turned away pulling free of Ray's grip. "Plagues, famines, freezing in the ice filled waters of the north, I could name 'undreds of ways worse than a quick drop 'nd sudden stop."

"Wait what?" Michael couldn't quite control the jaw dropping reaction.

"He said he's like Ryan." Ray revealed looking distinctly uncomfortable about it.

Gavin didn't even blink at the revelation, no ounce of humor present in his features and Michael felt his world tilt on it's axis. He stared at both of them because something was off, it had to be a joke. Right? "You've got to be shitting me."

"Nope." Ray popped the word, his nerves making him jittery, "then he tried to jump off the roof and prove it."

Michael went white as a sheet.

Gavin turned so he was profile to them looking up at the sky grinning. "You can relax, I won't," he made a rolling gesture with one hand towards the edge. "I thought I'd understand why Rye wanted to throw it away never come back."

"He didn't want to outlive us." Michael interjected promptly jerking his thumb behind him resolutely ignoring the shake of his hands, "he just flipped a little when Jo tried to tell him off for the salt the earth thing his will had going."

"That makes sense." Ray said finally his anger slipping away with each drag, smoke circling him "must be hard losing every friend you've got again and again."

Just like that Gavin, their Gavin was looking back at them, loose limbed life and motion as he lunged for Ray tackle hugging him. "Sorry I'm such a pleb X-Ray." 

Over his shoulder Ray and Michael exchanged a glance, Michael shrugged. They were still worried but it was probably best they didn't push it."You are an asshole," Ray hugged him back briefly, "don't freak me out like that man."

"Your such an idiot Gav." Michael approached punching him on the arm, "pleb? What does that even mean?"

"It's a word!" The Brit squawked indignity.

"That you made up maybe." Ray shook his head taking a step back, "pleb? Yeah not a word." The flick of his lighter illuminated them briefly.

"Awe  _ X-Ray _ !"

Just like that they were laughing Michael and Ray trading jabs without pause as Gavin squawked in feeble protests. Michael's phone went off and he lifted it to his ear pausing to listen, "Son of a Bitch!" The moment was broken as he darted to the roofs edge staring down. "We've got incoming!"

"What?!" Ray and Gavin charged over to find an army of swat style vehicles encircling the building.

"Bugger me." Gavin turned his eyes skyward spotting helicopters before they heard them. "Birds incoming!" The Brit grabbed both his Boi's and pulled them towards the roof entrance as bullets began to pepper the rooftop behind them. They dove to the stairwell and Ray slammed the door smacking a red button by the handle.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this moving too quickly? It feels like it's moving too quickly...  
> Ah well


	5. Part One; Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan and Gavin do reckless things.   
> Everyone is loosing their minds.

The red alert siren caught them off guard. 

Geoff lurched instantly to his feet as Jack lunged for his laptop. They'd been shoveling back coffee for a good half hour now since Ryan's outburst and Michael's hurried flight but by no means were they sober. 

They'd fought in worse shape. 

Michael's voice came over the intercoms, " _ attention all residents lock down in thirty seconds I repeat, lock down in thirty seconds. This is not a drill." _

Gavin led Michael and Ray into the main penthouse his eyes instantly landing on Geoff, there was something different about the lad that Geoff didn't have time to pin down. "Guests are on the second floor, heavily armed thugs right behind them. They have birds in the air." 

"Lockdown status?" Geoff snapped at Jack while Jacque and Lindsay ripped open every hidden weapons compartment in the room.  

"Siege mode activated. All apartments are fully sealed, safe rooms are activating smoothly." Jack lifted an arm so his twin could strap on his body armor "Elevators are down, we've got six civilians in the south west one, I'm bringing it up now." 

Normally they wouldn't have given a crap but the people in this building were  _ theirs  _ and Michael as their landlord had promised to protect them with the help of an extensive security system. Each apartment had bullet proof shielded walls, steel lined doors and a panic room. In turn they provided an early warning system in situations like these. 

They were an integral part of the crew’s information network and that made them worth saving.

"I'll get them secure." Ryan was already masked up, forgoing armor to check weapons strapping them on with calm precision. 

"I'll back you up." Gavin was similarly armed and armor less, there was something different in the way he carried himself that made Geoff stare. 

"Not without body armor idiot." Jo handed a set off to Lindsay and approached Gavin. 

"Won't need it." Gavin said it with a shrug his focus on Ryan, when he spoke it was in a language long dead that only one person in the room could decipher. " _ We are the same, you are not alone."  _

Ryan stilled the mask obscuring his reaction but he took a deep slow breath scrambling for control.  _ "I can't lose anyone else."  _

Gavin nodded expression serious  _ "Then we obliterate anyone who tries to take them from us, make an example."  _ He and Ryan moved like one heading out the doors in perfect tandem, lithe and dangerous in the silence around their exchange. 

Michael and Ray parted for the pair without words. 

"What the hell just happened? Gavin!" Geoff moved to follow them furious and scared, Gavin could barely take care of himself as it was. Turning on Michael and Ray he snapped, "Why didn't you stop him? He's going to get himself killed!"

"No he won't." Michael spoke up taking a breath as he slapped on his gear staring into the middle distance, "he said he's like Ryan." 

"And you believe him?!" Jacque exploded from where she was staring down into the street counting the trucks below getting an estimate as to the numbers. "He was probably joking!" 

"Yeah? Since when can Gav speak multiple languages?" Michael pointed out glancing at Lindsay, she knew the most languages of all of them and she just shook her head indicating it was nothing she had ever heard, "or do you think they were pulling our legs just now?" 

"I had to drag him off the edge of the roof so he didn't prove it." Ray was quiet because it had still shaken him, badly and his words brought the entire room to a shocked stillness. When he looked at Geoff there was a quiet desperation in his eyes, "He wasn't poking fun he- he wasn't lying Boss." 

Geoff opened his mouth to protest but Jo cut across him as she grabbed the full med kit, "We have bigger problems right now people." 

"Jo's right we can kick Gavin's ass later." Jack hardly looked up from his computer, "they're on the fifth floor." 

"Don't we have party favor's on that floor?" Lindsay was leaning over Jack's shoulder her head tilted up looking at Michael. 

"Pepper jets and flash bomb drops are on five." Michael hummed in agreement, "I'd wait until they're further up, tenth floor, hit'em with something lethal first." 

"What's on the tenth floor?" Jacque asked curious drawing the curtains so any aerial shots couldn't be aimed direct.  

"Wall blades and hallucinogenic gas." Lindsay replied on half a sigh as she straightens going for the earpieces and beginning to distribute them. "Matt and the boys are on the way to hem the bastards in." 

"Good." Geoff is furious for half a dozen reasons, his voice curt as he comes over the com echoing in the room. " _ Our first priority are those birds we need to take them out without bringing the building down around our heads."  _

An unexpected voice slips onto their com,  _ "I've gotcha covered G, _ " and they feel the roar of a jet engine as it soars between buildings rattling windows. 

_ "Dan!"  _ Gavin sounds delighted from wherever he and Ryan are in the building,  _ "what are you doing here boyo?"  _

_ "Gav! How ya doing? Crew and I were taking a test flight saw you were having a party without us."  _ Dan is laughing and Geoff can practically see him flying circles around the choppers, he knows it's far more likely the Roosters had been sent to keep an eye on them but he won't look a gift horse in the mouth.  _ "bloody rude not invite us B." _

Joel, Kerry and Babs are in the air with him and their voices distant but present calling out with verbal jabs and Geoff just takes a moment to value his connections. He owes Burns, Sorola and Hullum a drink. 

_ "Okay, air is covered then."  _ Geoff straps on his extra clips and stares them down.  _ "We need to funnel them into a corner and take them out. We're going to split into two teams, one for each stairwell. Michael you're with me on the south set, Ray and Jacque you take the east side. Jack, Lindsay and Jo hold the fort. Jack you're our eyes let's do this."  _

They move out without protest splitting up with only the slightest pause for Lindsay and Michael to share a hot fast kiss for luck. 

_ "Civilians are secure."  _ Ryan reports in his deepest Vagabond voice,  _ "no casualties. We're headed down."  _

_ "Did you hack the fucking elevator?"  _ Jack snaps because it's moving outside of the security protocols. 

_"Sorry Jack."_ Gavin doesn't sound ashamed at all and since when did he know how to hotwire an elevator into motion? Jack has to refocus to catch the lads request, _"Do us a favor and kill the gas on ten yeah? I'm bringing the crazy down with me."_

_ "Hey!"  _ Ryan says indignant,  _ "you get as old as me boy and we'll see how sane you are."  _

_ "I'm plenty old Rye,"  _ Gavin's voice is conversational light with laughter as if nothing has changed,  _ "not gone all loopy yet, I think it's just you." _

_ "Please,"  _ Ryan scoffs,  _ "you're probably less than what? Four centuries?"  _ He takes a guess based on the way Gavin behaves and how he was outlook wise around that age. 

_ "Do we really need to do this now guys?"  _ Jacque tries to change the subject because they need to focus and the fact that Gavin could be well over six hundred years old is distracting to say the least. 

_ "I want to know."  _ Geoff cuts in,  _ "how old are you really Gavin?"  _ It's a loaded question, how long have you been lying to us? How many birthdays were a lie? Who. are. you. 

There is only a slight pause where Gavin chooses to answer,  _ "Well over six centuries, in years close as I can reckon it's like fourteen hundred twenty six give or take a decade or two."  _

His announcement is met with utter silence until Ryan says something in an old language that sends shivers down Ray's back as he flies down stairs Jacque at his side. They exchange a glance when Gavin squeals in protest answering rapidly in something as similarly foreign. 

The way the pair are acting like it's all so normal is fucking with their heads. 

_ "Come back up,"  _ Jack snaps over there banter bringing the group back to point,  _ "if you come out of the elevator you won't have any cover, there's at least fifty guys down there!" _

_ "Oh I don't like those odds Ryan."  _ Gavin sounds playful and when Ryan answers it's downright disheartening. 

_ "They don't stand a chance." _

_ "They'll turn you into Swiss cheese!"  _ Jacque protests fear ripe in her voice, they're on twenty now there is no way they can out pace them. 

" _ Rendezvous with Geoff's team on eleven and we can hit them hard south."  _ Jack's formulating a plan and it just might get them out alive goddammit. 

Ryan and Gavin exchange a quick series of words in yet another unfamiliar language and that grates on Michael's last nerve.  _ "Speak English already you fucks!" _

The elevator reached the tenth floor and Jack tried to keep it from opening his fingers flying over the keyboard.  _ "Don't you dare!" _

_ "Wait for us to get there."  _ Geoff demanded, he started slamming downstairs flights at a time.  _ "Wait for back up damn you."  _

Ryan laughs long and low as the elevator doors open, "you'll just be in the way." 


	6. Part One; Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Love and Stuff Kicks serious ass.  
> Geoff is not talking to either of them right now.

Jack wants to scream, because whatever Gavin's done has locked him out. All he can do is sit there and watch, Jordyn takes up behind him while Lindsay covers the door gnawing at her lip but silent. 

On the tenth floor Gavin flies out of the elevator first with Ryan right behind him and Jack has to admit it's like watching poetry in motion- for the first thirty seconds. 

Gavin drops low an Uzi in each hand and fires a spray without even pausing to aim, Ryan emerges with an AK in one hand and a pair of flash bombs in the other. The enemy is screaming at the sight of him, word already around that he had died and Ryan throws his head back howling with laughter. 

He fires and throws the flashes simultaneously and Jack has to look away from the feeds for a moment when he looks back Gavin takes about a handful of bullets to the chest and Ryan doesn't even hesitate as he steps over the fallen lad. 

The com's are distant and wild, filled with panicked demands for status and Ryan doesn't even acknowledge them. Jack can't find the breath to speak behind him Jordyn makes a sound like she's been struck. 

On ten bullets are flying fast and hard in the hall and Ryan takes out about half of the enemy army out in seconds before running out of ammo. He drops the gun and falls into a crouch reaching for the pistols in his jacket. 

Gavin steps up behind him filling the moments it takes Ryan to draw with unquantified violence. The lad is laughing as his victims shout in pure panic at the impossible and Gavin is drenched in blood but he doesn't move with any kind of pain. 

The com's stutter into silence and Jack can feel relieved tears streaming down his face. Jo just collapses into a chair like her world is falling apart. 

Floors below Gav runs dry and Ryan rises his own guns firing as the lad drops reaching into pockets and hurling a pair of grenades down the hall before he draws out a short barreled auto shotgun.

Ryan makes an appreciative noise right before he goes down and the grenade detonates. Gavin clips himself with it getting thrown up and past Ryan. 

There are about ten minorly injured infiltrators left and Jack mutely triggers the spring loaded knives in the walls catching a few more by surprise. The others are still two floors away. 

Gavin gets up first covered in impossibly more blood, he nudges Ryan as he goes past and the man stirs a little. Smiling Gavin pulls out his golden pistol and finishes everything that moves.

It's over before it even began, there hadn't even been enough time for their enemy to flee. 

When Geoff and Michael burst onto the floor it's dead silent, the carpets are doused in red to the point where shoes squelch. Bodies lay in piles shot to pieces, dusted with empty casings and bits of drywall. 

Gavin is crouched beside Ryan a gun held loosely in one hand and his eyes on his watch. Ryan is riddled with holes across his chest but his head seems fine though the sight of him lying still again is going to send Geoff into a tailspin. 

Ryan takes a coughing shuddering breath and his eyes flare open, "damn that smarts." He pushes himself up and rubs his chest a little. 

Gavin looks away from his watch "two minutes fifty nine seconds not bad for an old man." 

"Don't make me shoot you." Ryan warns but there's a lightness in his tone that fades when he spots Michael and Geoff staring at them in utter shock. "Uh, hi." 

Jacque and Ray approach from the opposite direction, Jacque is muttering into her com soothingly with eyes on fire. Ray is shaking when he launches himself at Gavin and Ryan. 

"Whoah easy X-Ray!" And Gavin trades a guilty look at Ryan who seems a little surprised for the affection eyes wide beneath his mask. 

_ "Don't do that."  _ Jack scolds them in their ears and they can tell he's crying. Just like that Michael is yelling at them and Jacque is speaking with disappointed rebuke.  _ How could you do that? Do you enjoy dying morons?!?! _

Ryan leans his head against the hallway patting Ray on his shoulder awkwardly while Gav rubs soothing circles on his back. They just let the words wash over them, because even though they're furious it's clear it's more out of concern and let's face it they'd both had worse reactions to immortality. 

When Ray pulls back his eyes are red and he's covered in their blood. He makes a face that sets Gavin laughing softly because even after all these years Ray had never really liked the close stuff. 

"Alright," Geoff speaks finally cutting over the others and he's full on work mode no trace of light or humor in the man, "we still have work to do." He pointed at Gav and Ryan, "check in with the doc and get cleaned up. We  _ will  _ talk about this. Ray go with them." 

Michael stepped up all business but he thwacks Gav in the arm as the lad passes him, "B team is sweeping the street now and I've got cleanup running up the floors. Lester is detaining police but we're going to have the military up our asses in like twenty minutes. Maybe."

"I'll make some calls, get you some time." Geoff makes a wrap it up motion and Michael goes heading to check out his people in the apartments, get them clear. "Jacque take the boys when they're cleaned up and go into town. Be discreet."

Jacque looked up from where she was rifling through the pockets of the dead for ID's, "do your really expect that to happen boss?" Anger is born in every line of her body as she shifts to the next body, "they're going to  _ burn _ for this."

Geoff didn't disagree, "I don't want them to see it coming." 

"Understood." She stands with bloodied hands and Geoff offers his handkerchief, "thanks, one thing for sure, these weren't Simeon's boys." 

"Yeah?" Geoff is genuinely surprised for a moment until he really looks at the scores of dead and realizes how young they are, not really Simeon's MO, he prefers experience these days. "I can't think of who the fuck else we pissed off this badly."

Matt opened the door of the main stairs at that moment, "hey Boss I brought you a present!" The man was cheerful as he dropped the bundle he was carrying at Geoff's feet, planting a foot atop it to keep the squirming form in place. 

The man was bound and gagged staring at bloodied the halls in horror. Jacque leaned against Geoff with a predatory grin and met the man's eyes. "Betcha he could tell you." 

Geoff smiled sharply at Matt, "and it's not even my birthday."

**Author's Note:**

> One day I will tell you how they met Jo, it's not a happy story, until then you'll get some hints.  
> Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
